People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Gene drive technologies (GDTs) have been proposed as a potential new way to alleviate the burden of malaria, yet have also raised ethical questions. A central ethical question regarding GDTs relates to whether it is morally permissible to intentionally modify or eradicate mosquitoes in this way and how the inherent worth of humans and non-human organisms should be factored into determining this. Existing analyses of this matter have thus far generally relied on anthropocentric and zoocentric perspectives and rejected an individualist (...) biocentric outlook in which all living organisms are taken to matter morally for their own sake. In this paper, we reconsider the implications of taking a biocentric approach and highlight nuances that may not be evident at first glance. First, we shortly discuss biocentric perspectives in general, and then outline Paul Taylor’s biocentric theory of respect for nature. Second, we explore how conflicting claims towards different organisms should be prioritised from this perspective and subsequently apply this to the context of malaria control using GDTs. Our ethical analysis shows that this context invokes the principle of self-defence, which could override the pro tanto concerns that a biocentrist would have against modifying malaria mosquitoes in this way if certain conditions are met. At the same time, the case study of GDTs underlines the relevance of previously posed questions and criticism regarding the internal consistency of Taylor’s egalitarian biocentrism. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 162-169, February 2022.

The next World Congress of Bioethics will be held in Doha, Qatar. Although this location provides opportunities to interact with a more culturally diverse audience, to advance dialogue between cultures and religions, offer opportunities for mutual learning, there are also huge moral concerns. Qatar is known for violations of human rights ‐ including the treatment of migrant workers and the rights of women ‐ corruption, criminalization of LGBTQI+ persons, and climate impact. Since these concerns are also key (bio)ethical concern we (...) call for a broad debate within the bioethics community whether organizing and attending the World Congress in Qatar is ethically problematic and how ethical concerns should be dealt with. (shrink)

Abstract: This article contends that the relation of early logical empiricism to Kant was more complex than is often assumed. It argues that Reichenbach's early work on Kant and Einstein, entitled The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920) aimed to transform rather than to oppose Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. One the one hand, I argue that Reichenbach's conception of coordinating principles, derived from Kant's conception of synthetic a priori principles, offers a valuable way of accounting for the (...) historicity of scientific paradigms. On the other hand, I show that even Reichenbach, in line with Neo-Kantianism, associated Kant's view of synthetic a priori principles too closely with Newtonian physics and, consequently, overestimated the difference between Kant's philosophy and his own. This is even more so, I point out, in the retrospective account logical empiricism presented of its own history. Whereas contemporary reconstructions of this history, including Michael Friedman's, tend to endorse this account, I offer an interpretation of Kant's conception of a priori principles that contrasts with the one put forward by both Neo-Kantianism and logical empiricism. On this basis, I re-examine the early Reichenbach's effort to accommodate these principles to the paradigm forged by Einstein. (shrink)

Driven by interests in workforce planning and patient safety, a growing body of literature has begun to identify the reality and the prevalence of missed nursing care, also specified as care left undone, rationed care or unfinished care. Empirical studies and conceptual considerations have focused on structural issues such as staffing, as well as on outcome issues – missed care/unfinished care. Philosophical and ethical aspects of unfinished care are largely unexplored. Thus, while internationally studies highlight instances of covert rationing/missed care/care (...) left undone – suggesting that nurses, in certain contexts, are actively engaged in rationing care – in terms of the nursing and nursing ethics literature, there appears to be a dearth of explicit decision-making frameworks within which to consider rationing of nursing care. In reality, the assumption of policy makers and health service managers is that nurses will continue to provide full care – despite reducing staffing levels and increased patient turnover, dependency and complexity of care. Often, it would appear that rationing/missed care/nursing care left undone is a direct response to overwhelming demands on the nursing resource in specific contexts. A discussion of resource allocation and rationing in nursing therefore seems timely. The aim of this discussion paper is to consider the ethical dimension of issues of resource allocation and rationing as they relate to nursing care and the distribution of the nursing resource. (shrink)

This article challenges Honneth's reading of Hegel's Philosophy of Right in The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel's Social Theory (2001/2010). Focusing on Hegel's method, I argue that this text hardly offers support for the theory of mutual recognition that Honneth purports to derive from it. After critically considering Honneth's interpretation of Hegel's account of the family and civil society, I argue that Hegel's text does not warrant Honneth's tacit identification of mutual recognition with symmetrical instances of mutual recognition, let alone (...) his subsequent projection of symmetrical forms of mutual recognition onto the various spheres of the Philosophy of Right as a whole. I conclude by indicating an alternative way in which Hegel's text might be used to understand contemporary society. (shrink)

My response to Gabriele Gava’s Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023) focuses on Kant’s conception of the role of critique in the Critique of Pure Reason. On my account, Gava’s emphasis on the constructive elements of the Critique downplays the critique of former metaphysics elaborated in all three parts of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. After some comments on Kant’s conception of the Critique as a doctrine of method, I support this view by discussing the (...) relation between transcendental philosophy and transcendental critique, Kant’s analysis of the faculties, and his transcendental deduction of space. (shrink)

Shedding new light on Kant’s use of the term ‘transcendental’ in the Critique of Pure Reason, this article aims to determine the elements that Kant’s transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolffian ontology as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. On this basis I argue that Wolff’s, Kant’s and Hegel’s conceptions of metaphysics – qua first philosophy – have a deeper affinity than is commonly assumed. Bracketing the issue of Kant’s alleged subjectivism, I challenge the opposition (...) between metaphysical and non-metaphysical readings of Hegel’s Science of Logic. One the one hand, I argue that Hegel was more deeply indebted to Kant than he generally admits. On the other hand, I hold that this debt concerns Kant’s conception of metaphysics rather than his alleged subjectivism. (shrink)

In this article we present a new experimental paradigm: comparative visual search. Each half of a display contains simple geometrical objects of three different colors and forms. The two display halves are identical except for one object mismatched in either color or form. The subject's task is to find this mismatch. We illustrate the potential of this paradigm for investigating the underlying complex processes of perception and cognition by means of an eye‐tracking study. Three possible search strategies are outlined, discussed, (...) and reexamined on the basis of experimental results. Each strategy is characterized by the way it partitions the field of objects into “chunks.” These strategies are: (i) Stimulus‐wise scanning with minimization of total scan path length (a “traveling salesman” strategy), (ii) scanning of the objects in fixed‐size areas (a “searchlight” strategy), and (iii) scanning of object sets based on variably sized clusters defined by object density and heterogeneity (a “clustering” strategy). To elucidate the processes underlying comparative visual search, we introduce besides object density a new entropy‐based measure for object heterogeneity. The effects of local density and entropy on several basic and derived eye‐movement variables clearly rule out the traveling salesman strategy, but are most compatible with the clustering strategy. (shrink)

As late-1990s developments in higher education suggest that a concept of a university will continue to be redefined, this text looks at the past, present and possible future changes in the nature of universities.

This paper analyses self-declared aims and representation of dementia patient organizations and advocacy groups in relation to two recent upheavals: the critique of social stigmatization and biomedical research focusing on prediction. Based on twenty-six semi-structured interviews conducted in 2016–2017 with members, service recipients, and board representatives of POs in Germany and Israel, a comparative analysis was conducted, based on a grounded theory approach, to detect emerging topics within and across the POs and across national contexts. We identified a heterogeneous landscape, (...) with the only Israeli PO focusing strongly on caretakers, whereas in Germany several POs claim to represent this patient collective. Shared aims of all POs were fighting social stigma, balancing the loss of patients’ individual autonomy, and the well-being of caretakers. By highlighting the emergence of new groups of dementia self-advocacy against the more traditional advocacy by others, this study highlights how advocacy and representation in the context of AD are embedded in the discursive context of stigmatization and revised disease conception. Future developments in early diagnosis and prediction of dementia, with more affected people likely to conduct dementia self-advocacy, might challenge existing representation structures even more. (shrink)

The extended reliance on media can be seen as one indicator of mediatization. But even though we can assume that the pervasive character of digital media essentially changes the way people experience everyday life, we cannot take these experiences for granted. There has recently been a formulation of three tasks for mediatization research; historicity, specificity and measurability, needed to empirically verify mediatization processes across time and space. In this article, we present a tool designed to handle these tasks, by measuring (...) the extent to which people experience that media reach into the deeper layers of daily human life. The tool was tested in an empirical study conducted in Sweden in 2017. The results show that perceived media reliance is played out in relation to three types of basic desires: (1) (re)productive desires, (2) recognition desires, and (3) civic desires, and is socially structured and structuring. We argue this tool, in diachronic analyses, can measure one important aspect of mediatization. (shrink)

BackgroundSeveral studies identified low subjective feelings of power in women with anorexia nervosa. However, little is known about implicit power motives and the discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives in AN.AimThe study investigated the discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives and its relationship to anxiety in patients with AN.MethodFifty-three outpatients and inpatients with AN and 48 participants without AN were compared regarding subjective feelings of power and anxiety. Explicit power [investigated with the (...) Personal Sense of Power Scale and a visual analog scale ], implicit power motives [investigated with the Multi-Motive Grid ] and trait anxiety [measured with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory ], were assessed.ResultsExplicit feelings of power were lower in patients with AN compared to non-AN participants. No differences in implicit power motives were found when comparing the groups against each other. However, looking at the groups separately, women with AN had similar levels of implicit fear of losing power and hope for power, whereas woman without AN had significantly lower fear of losing power than hope for power. Focusing on discrepancies between powerful feelings and power motives, results were mixed, depending on the subscale of the MMG. Lastly, discrepancies between implicit power motives and explicit feelings of power were positively correlated with trait anxiety in AN patients.ConclusionThese findings underline that individuals with AN display significantly lower explicit feelings of power, however, they show similar implicit power motives compared to individuals without AN. The discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives is related to anxiety in AN and may represent a vulnerability factor to illness maintenance. (shrink)

"Recent years have seen a growing interest among scholars of 18th-century German philosophy in the period between Wolff and Kant. This book challenges traditional interpretations of this period that focus largely on post-Leibnizian rationalism and, accordingly, on a depreciation of the contribution of the senses to knowledge about the world and the self. It addresses the divergent ways in which eighteenth-century German philosophers reconceived the notion and role of experience in their efforts to identify, defend, and contest the contribution of (...) foundational a priori principles and empirical data to the various branches of metaphysics, the natural sciences, and emerging disciplines such as psychology and aesthetics. The chapters are organized according to the four major schools that defined the various phases of German Enlightenment philosophy: Wolff and Wolffianism, Eclecticism and Populärphilosophie, the Berlin Academy, and Kant. Each chapter is devoted to one or more philosophers, several of whom are seriously under investigated or even unknown outside small circles of specialists. By framing the period in terms of the notion of experience, this book presents a more nuanced understanding of the German reception of British and French ideas and theories, dismisses the prevailing view that German philosophy was largely isolated from European debates, introduces a number of relatively unknown, but highly relevant philosophers and developments to non-specialized scholars, and contributes to a better understanding of the richness and complexity of the German Enlightenment"--. (shrink)

Models of dream analysis either assume a continuum of waking and dreaming or the existence of two dissociated realities. Both approaches rely on different methodology. Whereas continuity models are based on content analysis, discontinuity models use a structural approach. In our study, we applied both methods to test specific hypotheses about continuity or discontinuity. We contrasted dream reports of congenitally deaf-mute and congenitally paraplegic individuals with those of non-handicapped controls. Continuity theory would predict that either the deficit itself or compensatory (...) experiences would surface in the dream narrative. We found that dream form and content of sensorially limited persons was indifferent from those of non-handicapped controls. Surprisingly, perceptual representations, even of modalities not experienced during waking, were quite common in the dream reports of our handicapped subjects. Results are discussed with respect to feedforward mechanisms and protoconsciousness theory of dreaming. (shrink)

This rich and diverse collection offers a range of perspectives and practices of Philosophy for Children (P4C). P4C has become a significant educational and philosophical movement with growing impact on schools and educational policy. Its community of inquiry pedagogy has been taken up in community, adult, higher, further and informal educational settings around the world. The internationally sourced chapters offer research findings as well as insights into debates provoked by bringing children’s voices into moral and political arenas and to philosophy (...) and the broader educational issues this raises, for example: historical perspectives on the field; democratic participation and epistemic, pedagogical and political relationships; philosophy as a subject and philosophy as a practice; philosophical teaching across the curriculum; embodied enquiry, emotions and space; knowledge, truth and philosophical progress; resources and texts for philosophical inquiry; ethos and values of P4C practice and research. The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children will spark new discussions and identify emerging questions and themes in this diverse and controversial field. It is an accessible, engaging and provocative read for all students, researchers, academics and educators who have an interest in Philosophy for Children, its educational philosophy and its pedagogy. (shrink)

Regenerative Medicine promises to develop treatments to regrow healthy tissues and cure the physical body. One of the emerging developments within this field is regenerative implants, such as jawbone or heart valve implants, that can be broken down by the body and are gradually replaced with living tissue. Yet challenges for embodiment are to be expected, given that the implants are designed to integrate deeply into the tissue of the living body, so that implant and body become one. In this (...) paper, we explore how regenerative implants may affect the embodied experience of implant recipients. To this end, we take a phenomenological approach. First, we explore what insights the existing phenomenological and empirical literature on embodiment offers regarding the experience of illness and of living with regular (non-regenerative) implants and organ transplants. Second, we apply these insights to better understand how future implant recipients might experience living with regenerative implants. Third, we conclude that concepts and considerations from the existing phenomenological literature do not sufficiently address what it might be like to live with an implantable technology that, over time, becomes one with the living body. We argue that the interwovenness and intimate relationship of people living with regenerative implants should be understood in terms of ‘entanglement’. Entanglement allows us to explore the complexities of human-technology relations, acknowledging the inseparability of humans and implantable technologies. Our theoretical foundations regarding the role of embodiment may be tested empirically once more people will be living with regenerative implants. (shrink)

BÄCKSTRÖM B, ASPLUND K and SUNDIN K.Nursing Inquiry2010;17: 257–268 The meaning of middle‐aged female spouses’ lived experience of the relationship with a partner who has suffered a stroke, during the first year postdischargeStroke consequences present a great long‐term challenge to the spouses of the stroke sufferer. A longitudinal study with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach was used to illuminate the meanings of middle‐aged female spouses’ lived experience of their relationship with a partner who has suffered a stroke, during the first year (...) postdischarge. Four middle‐aged female spouses of stroke sufferers participated in the study. Narrative interviews were conducted 1, 6 and 12 month postdischarge (total of 12 interviews), audio‐taped and transcribed verbatim to a text and interpreted by a phenomenological hermeneutic method inspired by Ricoeur. The findings showed a process over time during which spouses come to know, recognize and acknowledge the residual changes in their partners’ cognitive and emotional conditions and the impact on their relationship. Spouses showed grief due to the loss of the marital relationship they once had and anxiety that they would not be able to continue in an undesired relationship in the future. Even if the partner is still alive, there is a loss to grieve and to be understood, an important meaning of the transition process in the relationship during the first year after the partner's discharge. (shrink)

In order to responsibly protect certain cherished values, for instance, human or environmental health, privacy, or ‘human dignity’, societies see a need for oversight, guidance and regulation of de...

The goal is to present how shared decision-making in paediatric oncology occurs from the viewpoints of parents and physicians. Eight Swiss Pediatric Oncology Group centres participated in this prospective study. The sample comprised a parent and physician of the minor patient. Surveys were statistically analysed by comparing physicians’ and parents’ perspectives and by evaluating factors associated with children’s actual involvement. Perspectives of ninety-one parents and twenty physicians were obtained for 151 children. Results indicate that for six aspects of information provision (...) examined, parents’ and physicians’ perceptions differed. Moreover, parents felt that the children were more competent to understand diagnosis and prognosis, assessed the disease of the children as worse, and reported higher satisfaction with decision-making on the part of the children. A patient’s age and gender predicted involvement. Older children and girls were more likely to be involved. In the decision-making process, parents held a less active role than they actually wanted. Physicians should take measures to ensure that provided information is understood correctly. Furthermore, they should work towards creating awareness for systematic differences between parents and physicians with respect to the perception of the child, the disease, and shared decision-making. (shrink)

Recent global advances in available technology to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission necessitate a rethinking of contemporary and previous ethical debates on HIV testing as a means to preventing vertical transmission. In this paper, we will provide an ethical analysis of HIV-testing strategies of pregnant women. First, we argue that provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing seems to be the most effective HIV test strategy. The flip-side of an opt-out strategy is that it may end up as involuntary testing in a clinical setting. (...) We analyse this ethical puzzle from a novel perspective, taking into account the moral importance of certain hypothetical preferences of the child, as well as the moral importance of certain actual preferences of the mother. Finally, we balance the conflicting concerns and try to arrive at an ethically sound solution to this dilemma. Our aim is to introduce a novel perspective from which to analyse testing strategies, and to explore the implications and possible benefits of our proposal. The conclusion from our analysis is that policies that recommend provider-initiated opt-out HIV testing of pregnant mothers, with a risk of becoming involuntary testing in a clinical setting, are acceptable. The rationale behind this is that the increased availability of very effective and inexpensive life-saving drugs makes the ethical problems raised by the possible intrusiveness of HIV testing less important than the child's hypothetical preferences to be born healthy. Health care providers, therefore, have a duty to offer both opt-out HIV testing and available PMTCT (preventing mother-to-child transmission) interventions. (shrink)

Modern medicine provides unprecedented opportunities in diagnostics and treatment. However, in some situations at the end of a patient’s life, many physicians refrain from using all possible measures to prolong life. We studied the incidence of different types of treatment withheld or withdrawn in 6 European countries and analyzed the main background characteristics.

Following the evolution towards media-saturated societies, this article presents practice theory as an alternative framework for mediatization studies. We discuss how it can help us grasp the diversity of social and cultural changes related to the highly integrated media. This is demonstrated by studying politicians' personalization, not as a product of media logic but by looking at politicians' media-related practices and media's anchoring of practices. Our in-depth interviews with Flemish politicians show that their practices are in many ways organized by (...) the media, but through this mediatization at the same time aim to retain control over them. It is also shown that politicians' practices are not only directly influenced by media, but also by other politicians' media-related practices. Together, these findings draw a complex picture of the mediatization and personalization process. (shrink)